Journal 3

As of right now I only have two of my three artifacts and they could be subject to change. They are a hat and a flag. The flag has a large, blue “W” on it and the hat has a graphic of that same “W” flag on it. This flag was made famous by the Chicago Cubs because they fly it after every game they win with the W symbolizing the team’s win. What was once known to mainly just Chicago locals and supporters of the baseball team has now become a common visual and form of rhetoric for sports fans. After I read the Edbauer piece and looked at her example of the “Keep Austin Weird” movement it made me think of the “W” flag. Both started out fairly simple ideas on one type of artifact, and then expanded into much more. Both only catered to a small crowd at first, but then later gained national attention due to the buzz it was creating. Like “Keep Austin Weird” merchandise, you can find shirts, hats, posters, sticker and much with the simple “W” flag logo. This flag has limitations; you don’t see it flying over Wrigley Field after a loss. The audience that this was originally intended for were Cubs fans. I also believe that this flag falls under the category of exigence. I was struggling with what artifacts I wanted to use, but after reading Edbauer’s piece and seeing it could be something as simple as a slogan, word, letter, or number I was able to easily find a couple artifacts that I wanted to do this project on.

            At first, there aren’t really any similarities to the artifacts of rhetoric that some others picked compared to mine. As you look closer though there are many more similarities than you would think. The more examples I see I try to see if they classify as rhetoric according to the readings we have done, and they always do. There seems to always be an audience. The audience can sometimes be as small as one, like a personal planner, or it could be millions of people who attended women’s marches across the country. There is usually always a constraint or limitations on whatever the artifact it, but we all seemed to pick an artifact that held some sort of limitation, whether small or large.